Posted on 08/01/2014 12:33:42 PM PDT by Lorianne
ore than half of California is now under the most severe level of drought for the first time since the federal government began issuing regular drought reports in the late 1990s, according to new data released Thursday..
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor report, in July roughly 58% of California was considered to be experiencing an "exceptional" drought -- the harshest on a five-level scale.
This is the first year that any part of California has seen that level of drought, let alone more than half of it, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center, which issued the report.
“You keep beating the record, which are still all from this year," he said.
The entire state has been in severe drought since May, but more of it has since fallen into more severe categories -- "extreme" and "exceptional." Nearly 22% more of California was added into the exceptional drought category in the last week alone.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
California has known about the threat of drought for half a century, and has done only the bare minimum to mitigate it.
Time and again they refuse to allow sea water desalinization in their state, for a multitude of stupid reasons. They even want Mexico to build desalinization plants and ship the fresh water north, just so California doesn’t have to.
They have 17 plants “in the works”, but they never seem to go on line and start producing fresh water. Six plants only produce a small amount of water.
Texas has over 100 desalinization plants.
It may happen in the fall if the predicted El Nino kicks in....even a "light" event gives SoCal a huge douche.
They should build irrigation canals to their portions that are in extreme drought. I've long advocated Kalifornia's doing the same, sourced from the soggy northwest....shoot it alongside I-5 right into the San Joaquin Valley.
That would be scenic
...run it down the right of way, and nobody’d even know it was there......and it’d be a sh*tpot cheaper than Jerry Brown’s multi-billion dollar Choo-choo train that nobody’s gonna ride.
bump
The White Elephant Express (WEE!) is a waste of money.
California needs water not trains.
While open air irrigation canals are a good low tech solution, they lose an unwholesome amount of water to evaporation. Every mile water is instead pipelined saves a fortune. It costs more initially, but the savings in already more expensive desalinized water adds up.
Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch of jerks!
True it’s partially the cause of the demise of the Aral Sea (waste of water in poorly insulated canals).
They’d be better off converting the Salton Sea into an inland port (and actual sea) through canal to the Sea of Cortez (would require a treaty with Mexico), then building massive desalinization plants, and using the rest of the surrounding land for agriculture, shoreline (beach/resort property), as well as new wetlands for wildlife on part of the sea. Mexico would benefit as well, as Mexicali would be an instant inland port.
THIS OF COURSE would never happen as it would require billions in private investment, as well as international treaties, land acquisition from Native Americans and others, as well as the environmentalists to overcome..
The bottom line is that there is no end to potentially good ideas how they could alleviate their problems, yet they want nothing to do with any of them.
http://patriotpost.us/pages/256
Global Warming. Bush’s fault.
It’s also, and more to the point, what you get when you divert millions of gallons of Sierra snow melt directly into the delta to save a fish and turn the Central Valley into a dust bowl.
You believe God is punishing people with weather on a community by community basis?
The relatives of those who died in all weather-related events probably differ in opinion.
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